


Triumph

by LokasennaHiddleston



Category: Crimson Peak (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Because I wanted Thomas to be happy, F/M, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Manipulation, Past Incest, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 16:56:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10167578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LokasennaHiddleston/pseuds/LokasennaHiddleston
Summary: The evening Edith finds out of the truth about her husband and his sister, Thomas makes a different turn in the corridors of the house. Instead of inexplicably ending up on the other side of the hall, he intervenes in the argument between Lucille and Edith. One decision - and it changes everything. The ghosts of Crimson Peak might still be appeased, and the curse of Crimson Peak might still be lifted.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Why did I write this? Blame Tumblr. I saw some gifs of Thomas Sharpe and then got frustrated that there's so little CP fanfic on the Archive, so naturally, I had to write something to make me feel better.  
> Never fear. Will go back to my Marvel pairings soon.

Allerdale Hall has a lot of secrets—and a lot of ghosts. Today, one more secret has been added to the pile.

It starts when Edith stumbles onto the grizzly scene of her husband in an intimate position with his own sister, guided by the ghost of Enola Sciotti. Lucille smirks at her in satisfaction, while Thomas gives her a lost, mournful look.

Edith stumbles away from the room, feeling nauseated. After everything she has come to learn about this place, she did not believe things could get any worse. Apparently she was very much mistaken.

Lucille catches up with her. "This is who I am," she says smugly. "This is who he is."

Thinking back, it is so obvious now—the way Lucille always looked at her and Thomas, her unexplainable jealousy, her constant stalking presence. "You're not his sister," Edith says.

Lucille opens her mouth to reply, but before she can say anything, Thomas grabs her shoulder. "Lucille, no... Stop it! Someone's at the door."

He's right. The sound of furious knocking echoes through the cavernous main hall of the house. "I don't care," Lucille snaps. "Whoever it is, we'll take care of it."

There is one moment, when everything seems to freeze. Lucille makes a grab for Edith's arm, clearly wanting to shove her over the banister. Thomas gets there first, and pushes Lucille over the edge instead.

The fall isn't pretty. Lucille hits the banister on the first floor, and the wood splinters as it makes contact with her back. Outside, the frantic knocks continue.

Lucille lands on with a decisive bang down below. Thomas and Edith both stare.

In all honesty, Edith does not know who is more shocked by this turn of events—herself, Thomas, or perhaps, Lucille herself. She caught a glimpse of Lucille's face before the fall, and the look was... Well, priceless.

But she does not have time to revel in it now. The knocks continue. Edith takes a good look around the hall, musing over her situation. Then, she turns toward Thomas. "Get the door," she tells him.

Thomas nods, looking dazed. He is in shock, Edith can see that much. Even so, he takes a deep breath, visibly bracing himself for what is to follow.

He doesn't leave immediately, though. Instead, he leans forward and brushes his lips over her temple. It's gentle, soft, warm, and his eyes are open. It's nothing like what she saw earlier, between him and Lucille. "Edith, I love you. I want you to know that—no matter what happens."

And with that, he leaves. He clearly believes that she is going to expose them, and by rights, she should. She does not.

Later, when Alan walks into Allerdale Hall, she is relieved, because yes, she can work with this. She bursts into tears and throws herself into Alan's arms. "Alan... Oh God, Alan... You'll never believe it. She was completely insane. She tried to kill us—Thomas and me."

Alan looks at her in a mix of pity and concern. "Edith..." He cuts himself off when he realizes what she said. "Wait, Thomas and you?"

Edith nods frantically. "She'd made up this whole story in her head, about... a sickly love she had for Thomas... Thomas was married before, you know. And... God, Alan. She killed them. Killed all those women."

Alan looks at Thomas. He's just standing there, saying nothing. The guilt is practically written all over his face.

"Edith... I'm not sure things are exactly the way you see them. It wasn't just..."

Edith clenches her hand around Alan's arm, cutting him off. She looks up at him, pleading for him to understand. He knows something. He came here for a reason. He never trusted the Sharpes, and he was resourceful. A little digging could have easily unveiled the truth about Thomas's less-than-stellar romantic history.

He won't just let it go.

"Alan... I'm scared," she whispers. "I didn't mean to... I didn't mean to kill her."

He goes very still. "It was you?"

Edith nods. "I just... We were fighting, and suddenly... I'm not even sure how it happened. She was frantic, screaming... I was furious. I just... I don't even know."

Even as she speaks, she knows she is using him. He loves her. He deserves better.

But then, Crimson Peak has left her mark on her too. This is how it was always meant to be, since the moment she stepped through those doors.

"Alan... What if... What if they come to take me away?"

At that, Thomas finally snaps out of his trance. He approaches them slowly, his eyes glittering in the firelight. "It's all right, darling," Thomas says. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"That's right," Alan continues. Edith gets the feeling that they're staring at each other over her head, but she doesn't dare to steal a peak. "It was an accident, nothing more."

"Everybody knows the house is rickety and old. It's not the first accident that's happened here."

"Quite," Alan replies.

That one syllable sounds furious, bitter and fierce—so much anger in a single word. Edith would feel bad if this wasn't going exactly the way she hoped.

In the end, Alan stays at Allerdale Hall, half out of necessity and half to solidify their alibi. He quickly forgets about his anger when Edith confesses that she believes herself to be poisoned.

A quick search through Lucille's room reveals the source of Edith's malady. Alan is both horrified and relieved. The poison is slow-acting, he explains after he checks her over. She will need treatment, but she will recover.

Edith does not bother trying to supress her relief. It would have been ridiculous to have gone through all this only for Lucille to have the last laugh from beyond the grave.

The storm stops by morning, and by then, they have moved Lucille's body into her room. All evidence of wrongdoing is long gone.

They debate revealing all of Lucille's crimes to the police, but in the end, they decide against it. It is best not to make the authorities look at the case too closely. Alan is not sure Edith's actions would stand up to scrutiny. For all that it could be stated that she acted in self-defense, he is clearly uncertain of the outcome, and she is vague enough in her explanations that he is willing to bury the secret of the Sharpes.

It is a month later, after Edith is already on the mend and Lucille is buried in the cold ground, that he finally succumbs to the unavoidable and agrees to leave. They speak one last time in front of the main staircase of the house. "Are you sure about this, Edith? Won't you come home?"

Edith shakes her head. "My place is here, with my husband."

Alan presses his lips together, but nods. "If you ever need anything, anything at all..."

"I'll write. I promise you, Alan, I'll write."

She doesn't know if he believes her. He looks haunted, but he cannot force her to leave. Perhaps, in his heart, he knows that the choice she made was a little more complicated than she herself said. He has always been good at reading her.

Thomas emerges from the depths on the mansion only after Alan has already gone. Edith does not blame him. The tension between them was palpable, and Edith suspects that more than once, the two of them came to blows.

Edith suspects that, up to the last moment, Thomas feared that she would leave with Alan. He wraps his arms around her waist and holds her close, inhaling deeply, taking in the scent of her hair. "Why did you say that?" he asks shakily. "Why did you take the blame? Why did you tell him you killed her?"

Edith faces her husband without flinching. "Because I did."

The moment Lucille fell from the banister, the ghost of Enola Sciotti had manifested in front of her, just like before.

"Choose," it told her.

And she chose. "Get the door," she told Thomas.

Thomas's kiss and honest confession solidified her decision. As he left, she rushed down the stairs, running faster than she ever had in his life. Lucille lay unconscious on the pile of snow on the floor. It had broken her fall. She was still alive.

The fireplace was right there, and next to it, a small stack of logs. The ghost looked at it almost longingly. Edith's hands didn't hesitate when she picked up the largest one and brought it down on Lucille's head.

By the time Alan and Thomas made their way inside, the fire burned even brighter, one more log added into the flame, and Edith was on her knees in the snow, weeping over the body of her dead sister-in-law.

Thomas gapes at her as she takes in the meaning of her statement. Edith waits patiently for his reaction.

When it comes, his voice almost sounds... humbled. "Thank you," he says. "And I'm sorry... I should have had the strength to end it, before it got to that. I just..." He trails off, unable to finish the phrase. "I don't deserve you," he finally finishes.

It's probably true. It would be foolish in the extreme to pretend Thomas didn't have his own share of the blame in the murders. Lucille might have been the main perpetrator, but he was her accomplice.

And yet, Edith cannot find it in herself to regret her decision. She is a murderer now too, but she knows in her heart it was the right thing to do. And at the end of the day, she believes now, like she did that fateful day, that Thomas was most likely Lucille's very first victim. And she still remembers the warning, the very first warning of the ghost. "His blood will be on your hands."

It is likely that had Edith hesitated, Lucille's madness would have led them all to further tragedy. Whatever Thomas might have done, Edith cannot accept a world where he is dead. She knows that his love for her is true, and that is enough.

The ghosts of Allerdale Hall seemed to agree. If they blamed Thomas for their deaths, they must have stopped. They are all gone now. Edith can still remember Enola's approving nod before the woman faded into the distance, having finally found peace.

Time passes. With Lucille's death, the strange curse that had settled over the Sharpe mines is lifted. Now free of his sister's control, Thomas finally manages to complete his invention. When Carter Thomas Sharpe is born, months later, the nursery shines with light. The house is no longer sinking in the clay, the new income already being put to good use, fixing up the old manor.

Edith supposes that they could have left the house altogether. They could have returned the States, lived out their days there. But somehow, it would not have felt right. With every passing day, she fills the ancient rooms with laughter, joy and love, and that is her triumph. And she falls in love with Thomas all over again, just like she did that day, so long ago, in her father's offices.

Lucille cannot touch them. Allerdale Hall is beyond her reach—and it has been, ever since she and Thomas made their choices.

Not that Edith is beyond being petty. Sometimes, she sees a black ghost haunting the graveyard, and she laughs at it. She burns the piano and knows that she has won.


End file.
